Iron County Record | 1953-04-23 | Page 6 | B. A. C. Experiments Draw Interest in "Western Farm Life"

B. A. C. Experiments Draw Interest in "Western Farm Life" The April 15 Issue of "Western Farm Life", farm and ranch magazine published In Denver, Colo., carried an interesting and detaited report of the sheep breeding experiment being carried car-ried on at the Branch Agricultural Agricultur-al college In Cedar City. The article ar-ticle titled "Rambouillets vs. Newcomers" went into considerable considera-ble detail about the results of the experiment to date, and was illustrated with a number of pictures. pic-tures. That portion of the article dealing with the program, but not Including the details of results, re-sults, was as follows: Down at the Branch Agricul tural college in Cedar City, Utah, livestock researchers are beginning begin-ning .o get the answer to a question ques-tion they set out to study eight years ago: What is the type or bred of sheep most useful for southern Utah conditions? Commercial sheep flocks of , southern Utah are about 90 per cent Rambouillet blood, and the main purpose of the study is to learn if Cqlumbias or Targhees would be just as profitable there or more so. Results are begin- j ning to come in, and so far the ' Columbias seem to have the edge over the other breeds. yhile the technical aspects of . the research program are not being overlooked, it is first of all practical. "We try to keep I conditions the same as those en-, countered bv neiehborini? com mercial men," points our Darrell H. Matthews, BAC farm man- i. ager, who is in direct charge of the sheep. Except that sheep ' must be handled more often for the re-; quired weight and grade infor- i mation, the experimental flock meets about the same problems as its neighbors. The most radical radi-cal departure from local practice is lambing time, which has been advanced to about April 1. Matthews and Max E. Robinson, Robin-son, who direct the range management man-agement research at B A C, both i spend part of their time as assistant as-sistant professors in the college agricultural division. When the ranch was visited last June it was the practical, not the academic, aca-demic, that was occupying their time. Like neighboring ranchers, they were calculating how they were going to stretch the limited grass on the valley irrigated farm until time for the sheep to be turned on mountain range. This southern Utah experimental experimen-tal flock is going to be the source of valuable information for many years to come.